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Friday, September 14, 2007

LL Bean comes to Upstate NY

Today was the day. LL Bean officially opened this morning at 9AM here with a weekend packed full of festivities to celebrate. They were giving away gift cards (denominations ranging from $25 to $500) to the first 200 customers to start things off this morning. Thinking that no one would go to a mall at 9AM on a weekday, I ran over there at 9:40AM. The mall is across the street from both Target and Joanns, where I needed to pick up a few random items anyway.

How very wrong I was! The parking lot was so over-packed that there were police directing traffic (I have never seen this up here in small-towns-ville). I was overwhelmed so I turned my little self around and drove across the way to Dunkin Donuts. I rarely allow myself to indulge, especially since I have yet to do so much as a sit up to lose even an ounce of the major lbs I have gained over the last two years. Mind you, I will be on a beach in Hawaii in less than three months and I am still sittin' fat and pretty. But I digress. I was lacking caffeine and felt that I "needed" a sugar buzz to match. So I went through the drive thru, declined the zillion options of random new shit they are trying to push, order my coffee and all it's specifications and order my two chocolate frosted donuts. I am all but drooling at this point over this fat and calorie and sugar insanity. AND THEN....Dunkin Donut intercom drive through buddy had the nerve to tell me the most distressing sentence ever. "Oh, we actually don't have any donuts because our shipment didn't arrive today. Would you like a muffin or egg bagel instead?" WTF?! Are you kidding me? Your name is not Dunkin Muffin or Dunkin Egg Sandwich Bagel Crap. Your name is Dunkin DONUTS dammit! I was almost in tears. I didn't even want the donut until I got parking lot stressed 5 minutes earlier. And now I was on the verge of a meltdown. Since I actually don't really love DD coffee, I cancelled my order and left. I decided that I would park on the other side of the mall, go in and get coffee and then check out the Bean.

Now this mall is very small. And it used to be the crappiest of our malls (sense the longing for a city with good shopping?!). But over the last year or so this little mall has been revamped. We just got a Cheesecake Factory and PF Changs comes in just a few weeks. They are adding on a new movie theater and fun new stores like Bean. The little mall that once had (and truthfully still has a fair share of) all of those crappy random stores that size everything in odd numbers and are better suited to working the avenue than working in an office (don't even get me started on the lack of peppiness!), is really very pretty now with a fabulously renovated inside. The big mall still has all of the better stores but I have a feeling that a few might make the move to the little mall as it is attracting a much higher end crowd. Shoot, I forgot my point. Oh yes, coffee. I needed coffee. Fast. So there used to be two no name coffee places and neither of them were there today. They were just gone. Poof! Not a single place to get a cup of joe in the stinkin' mall. By now it was almost 10AM and I was cranky, but considering how long it took me to park I was going to see that store if it killed me.

Well I am sure you can guess that I did not get my gift card for $500 Bean Bucks. Apparently people got there at 4 and 5 AM to line up around the mall. All for a gift card. Who has the kind of time and determination? Not I said the fly, that's for sure. I walked in and was so incredibly overwhelmed that I had to leave less than 3 minutes later. I really wanted to see the new canvas totes that are all those yummy fall color stripes in person. And I did make it that far- they are beautiful by the way. But both check out lines were AT LEAST 100 people deep. The store only opened an hour earlier, remember! Oh and what struck me as funny was that the return line was just as long. It brought back memories from years ago when I worked retail and opened one of the pilot stores for Pottery Barn Kids. Customers would come from all over the country both to shop and return. Oh and to complain in person about whatever was wrong with their catalog order. I do not miss those days!

All in all, I spent a lot of time to accomplish nothing. Including a cup of coffee- that just never happened today. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. And the internet will always (or as long as my internet provider is up and running properly) be here for me to just order a new monogrammed bag online and avoid the hassle of standing in line for an hour. It is getting cold up here and tomorrow will be rather chilly according to my local weather man. I will be making my own fabu cup of coffee to take with me when Daddy and I go on the Tiffany Stained Glass Window tour. Yes, you read that correctly. While my area is lacking lovers like Bloomies and Saks and Neimans oh-my, we have one of the largest Tiffany glass collections in the country. Fancy that!

6 comments:

OMG, Kirsten! I am laughing so hard. Not at you, but with you. We just got a DD here in my little village and perish the thought they would not have donuts. and what do they mean delivery truck? They don't make them there? OMG, the HORROR of it all!

Crack me up! I loved the "your name isn't Dunkin Muffin!". I get really upset when I go somewhere and order Hamburger and French Fries and they are out of fries. They want to know if I want chips... Uh, no!

The shipment didn't arrive? The DD warehouse is just off of Central Ave by my office. That is weird. Hmm.

I was in Toronto during the opening of the LL Bean but I'm hoping to pop in at lunch sometime this week. I'm so excited about all the work over at that mall. They have the best Macys in our area so I spend a lot of time there :)

Oh my gosh! We lived 10 minutes from Colonie Center and I just can't imagine this redo!!! My dd will just flip when I tell her because it was the mall we went to when we were in a hurry and knew no one would be there! LOL

Oh Belle-ah- you would die of shock. It is really turning into the "nice" mall. Just in the last two years of so really. It's not there yet as far as stores but I am thinking another year or so and it will beat out Crossgates easily.